The nexus of high definition television (HDTV), high speed electronics, and exponentially increasing digital storage capacity has produced a revolution in the audiovisual industry that has been unparalleled since the creation of the television. Each year, new genres of video displays are released, such as high definition liquid crystal displays, plasma displays, micro-mirror projection displays, liquid crystal projection displays, liquid crystal on silicon displays, and grating light valve based displays.
Not to be left behind, the only constant in the audio industry has been change, with new formats including super-audio CD, audio DVD, the highly popular MP3, WAV, and other audio formats. The new formats have enabled a new generation of small, portable audio players that allow people to keep their entire audio library on a single source, or transfer it between sources such as their computer, their car radio, their portable MP3 player, and their home stereo.
Video storage is quickly following the lead of the audio industry, with the advent of various high definition video storage means, such as high definition DVD, BlueRay®, and integrated digital video recorders capable of recording multiple broadcasts, pausing live TV, and storing video libraries in single locations. A variety of audio and video broadcasting sources are also available, with a recent resurgence in broadcasting video over the public airwaves with advent of HDTV, hundreds of new digital video cable channels to choose from, and literally thousands of channels available in both video and audio from various satellite sources.
The legion of recent changes in the audio and video industries has dramatically increased the complexity of connecting and enjoying audiovisual entertainment. A quarter century ago a typical family room consisted of a television and a separate, typically unconnected stereo receiver. Now a home entertainment system can include 6, 7, even 10 different interconnected electronic devices, such as a television, stereo receiver, CD player, DVD player, digital video recorder, satellite receiver or cable box, and MP3 player. To connect these devices to properly function together requires fairly advanced skills. Each device typically comes with its own unique remote control. Controlling the multiplicity of devices can prove cumbersome. To reduce the complexity, advanced, programmable remote controls can be used to condense the number of controls needed to control such a system.
When a more advanced system is needed, the complexity required to connect and operate the advanced system can be beyond a typical user's knowledge or desire. For example, some users desire to view multiple video displays at one time (i.e., a video wall) where two or more televisions are interconnected to the other electronic devices. Having two, three, four, or more interconnected video displays enables a user to view multiple sports feeds, news feeds, or other types of video displays. In fact, connecting and switching the multiple video displays between the various video sources and electronic devices can be so unwieldy that it discourages the user from setting up or using such a system. Properly setting up such a system may take a few days or up to a week of an expensive programmer's time to setup automation software and complex macros to control a complicated audio video system as described. Even advanced controllers that are configured to operate audiovisual entertainment cannot easily and quickly provide a user controls for quickly and conveniently switching the multiple video displays between multiple video sources and a variety of electronic equipment.